Listen to Andrew Blum talking about his book: "Tubes, A Journey to the Center of the Internet" in Fresh Air."In Tubes, journalist Andrew Blum goes on a journey inside the
Internet's physical infrastructure to uncover the buildings and
compounds where our data is stored and transmitted. Along the way, he
documents the spaces where the Internet first started, and the people
who've been working to make the Web what it is today."

Amour (Love) a new film by Michael Haneke about the meaning of love and death with Jean-Louis Trintignant , Emmanuelle Riva. It's great to see Riva after her masterpiece Hiroshima Mon Amour...This film has won Goldene Palme award at Cannes Film Festival 2012.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turning corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.Read more...

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

"The malady that Alain Badiou has diagnosed is not limited to
the French, or even to Europeans. It is crucial to keep in mind that there are
those among the expatriate Iranian, Arab or South Asian intellectuals in Europe
who are identical in their Islamophobic racism against Muslims. A significant
segment of these expat intellectuals, clumsily wearing white masks over their
brown skin, are integral and definitive to secular fundamentalists' disdain for
Islam and Muslims.

The current Islamophobia in Europe is a disease - a slightly
updated gestation of old-fashioned European anti-Semitism. The disease is
widely spread in North America too. In the US, the selfsame disease is now
evident in the fact that US military officers have for years been indoctrinated by a viciously anti-Muslim pedagogy that
teaches US military personnel that Muslims "hate everything you stand for
and will never coexist with you, unless you submit"."Read More...

Yesterday, Chicago, with a gorgeous weather, heightened security for weekend NATO summit, was ebullient and filled with humor.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

L'Eclisse by Antonioni..."Eclipse is about a young woman who breaks up with an older lover
and then has an affair with a confident young stockbroker whose
materialistic nature eventually undermines their relationship.[2] The film is considered the last part of a trilogy which was preceded by L'Avventura (1960) and La Notte (1961)...." Read More

Dezful, you taught me how to smell, touch, breathe,
how to follow my instinct, my curiosity, my desires
in the dare-devil hot days...

You taught me how to build birds' nests,
feed the sparrows by a piece of bread left on the table,
view the universe from behind the brick windows...
find complexities, like the labyrinthine corridors of "Shawadoon"s,
observe communications between people sitting on "Sakoo"s or "Khajeh neshin"s
watching naked children playing with pebbles in the narrow allies

You taught me how to respect people's privacy
when walking through dark "Daalaan"s...

You taught me to be recklessly free when sleeping on the rooftop,
being close to the untouchable sky, the moon, the stars..

You taught me to be fragrant like your "Faash''es, like your "Zool"s...

You taught me to be brave and audacious like your summer sun
to be wild, like your spring thunderstorms
And be shy and timid like my long dress covering my pink bra
when the wind roars under its dancing waves...

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

ON Monday night I was invited to see
three scenes of three different operas at Civic Orchestra of Chicago, conducted
by Sir Andrew Davis, in memory of Florence Boone, a devoted Lyric Opera of Chicago supporter since 1960 who passed away on APRIL
2012, at the age of ninety three.

My friend preferred to sit on the balcony, I
preferred the center orchestra. The tickets were already purchased and I had to respect my host. A woman next to me
asked: What perfume do you wear? I told her. She was drowned into the scent of
my perfume and the radiance of orchestra Hall…then she said: Your pink scarf
matches beautifully with your black dress! I felt delightful!

A woman with a round black hat sitting
on front seat with peculiar fake aristocratic gesture, blocking my view from seeing
the singers, reminded me of Charlie Chaplin’s movies. Distressed by the hat, I busied
myself with the book, following the librettos. I wanted so badly to see Mimi
and Rodolfo’s face, the sweat on their foreheads, the sparkle in their eyes when
they sing the words of love, but I swallowed my longing for those moments…

Last night I saw the first play of IVP series, Third Wing (TercerCuerpo) a dark comedy Written by Claudio Tocalchir, translated by Jean
Graham-Jones and directed by Emilio Williams, in collaboration
with Instituto Cervantes and the Consulate General of Argentina in Chicago.

The Argentinian award-winning play “Third Wing (the story of an absurd
attempt)” is a poignant and often hilarious dramedy by one of the most
successful international theater artists working today. Five very different
characters are united by loneliness, incomprehension and the need to love and
be loved. A ramshackle office, a couple’s apartment, a bar and a medical
consulting room are the different stages where these human beings try to, one
day at a time, survive and move forward with their incomplete lives.

Relevant to our absurd life in the absurd global world, this play in surface
is about nothing, because nothing really happens on the stage, but it’s about
everything we deal with in our daily life and beyond…our profound loneliness, our strangeness towards each other, our lack of
empathy and sensitivity towards those who are in need. All characters --although ordinary but somehow extraordinary--wandering
in their web of loneliness, try to solve their problems, especially Hector
who dyes his hair jet black, dreaming of someone who falls in love with him!

Actors Dan Zellner and Nathan Pease getting ready to perform a reading of William Jordan's 'The Right Amount of Bad.' (Photo courtesy of Sunday Salon)

Last month I watched a short scene of The Right Amount of Bad by William (Bill) Jordan, a young, candid and enthusiastic playwright at SundaySalon. He sent me a copy of his play later that week. As I read the play I
found it poignant, absurd and inclusive. It kept me follow the dialogues with
enormous interest. The Right Amount of Bad gave me an elaborate picture of the psychology
of men and women in today’s American life where the characters are trapped in
their lonely, incongruous existence; their need to love, and be loved; their desire
for lust while the principles prevent them of their wild dreams. This play
examines what humans think, feel and desire for unlimited, for unrestricted. It
is a play about an internal struggle between “good” and “bad” and how women and men deal with them.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

In New York City’s Madison Square Park, hundreds of people attended a Free University "Free University" hosted by Occupy Wall Street, where professors gave
free classes to May Day protesters. Activists said the event marked an
alternative means of sharing knowledge outside the capitalist system.
"This movement is all about building community and sharing and coming up
with alternatives to the economic system that’s so pervasive in our
lives in everything that we do," said Amin Husain, a key facilitator for
the Occupy movement, who attended the event.

Yesterday, my friend, Mahasti Shahrokhi, a writer and poet from Paris called me and with a certain exciting tone of voice said: "Happy Workers Day!"
-"Thank you, Same to you", I said.
-"Today is our day. The workers day! Aren't we workers without pay? We work so hard as writers...
-"...And we're being severely exploited as writers!" I continued.
-"France celebrates May Day beautifully and it's a public holiday in Europe. All the shops, offices, banks are closed right now!"
And I thought to myself, May Day historically originated in Chicago in 1886, but American public doesn't know much about it!

"Outside the U.S., May 1 is International Workers' Day, observed with
speeches, rallies, and demonstrations. Ironically, this celebration of
working-class solidarity originated in the U.S labor movement in the
United States and soon spread around the world, but it never earned
official recognition in this country."

“It was mostly immigrants who led the first May Day movement for the 8
hour day. Now a new generation of immigrant workers have revitalized and
brought May Day back to life,” observed María Elena Durazo, the feisty
head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor who enthusiastically
embraced the Occupy movement in her city.

Watch or read the interviews on Occupy Everywhere in May Day in Democracy Now!
Watch another interview with Tariq Ali and Ann Wright in Democracy Now.Some of the voices of of organized labor at the May Day rally in New York.